Abbotsford B.C. – The Cascades captured their first win of the season, 3-1, against the Thompson Rivers University WolfPack at the UFV Athletic Centre on Friday night.

The Cascades closed it out 25-17, 32-30, 21-25, 25-17, to move to 1-6 on the season, while TRU drops to 2-3.

How It happened:
The Cascades got off to a hot start scoring the first four points of the set before kills from Nimo Benne and Roan McCarthy extended the lead to 10-4.  Three late kills from Tyson Ardell put the Cascades in position to take the set and a TRU service error closed it out 25-17.

The teams traded runs early until the Cascades went on a five-serve run in the middle portion of the set, boosted by two kills apiece from Benne and Jonas Van Huizen to make it 15-10.  TRU battled back to level the set at 24.  Neither team was able to get the edge battling up to 30-30 and a Benne kill put the Cascades in position to take advantage of a ball handling error from the Wolfpack and close out the set 32-20.  

The teams came out tight going point for point and remained in a constant fight for the lead throughout.  A kill from Rylan Ibbetson and an attack error from UFV sparked a comeback for the Wolfpack making it 21-18.  Sam Flowerday then had a kill which sealed the third set for the Wolfpack 25-21 sending it to the fourth. 

Once again, the teams grinded out a spot for the lead until Benne came up with two kills for UFV to breakaway 9-6.  The Cascades then remained in the lead by at least five points to the secure the win 25-17 with a kill each from Ardell and Easton Sarich.      

Notable:
Nimo Benne led the Cascades with 13 kills and 16 points. Jonas Van Huizen led the game with 38 assists.  Tyson Ardell had seven kills on 10 swings for an efficiency of .600.

Sam Flowerday led the game with 19 kills and had two service aces for the Wolfpack.  Rylan Ibbetson had 13 kills.   

Quotable:
Cascades setter Jonas Van Huizen

"We are just trying to move forward. One win is good, but we feel like we should have had a win a long time ago. We're happy, but we want to be prepared for tomorrow and get another win." 

- On the second set win:
"It definitely feels good to win one of those, especially when we were up, and we felt like we deserved the set. They had a set point, so it was nice to steal it back and get some confidence for sure."
 
What's Next:
The Cascades and WolfPack face off again tomorrow afternoon for the second match of the weekend series against the Thompson Rivers University Wolfpack at 3 p.m. 

UFV students get free admission to all UFV Cascades home games with their student card, and you can keep up with all the action at gocascades.ca, or by following the UFV Cascades on social media at @ufvcascades